Anyone involved in the Occupy protests? If so, you might be interested in these cards from In Defense of Animals:

Spring is here and the Occupiers are back in the streets. We must speak out for the 99% of animals who are threatened with human-imposed suffering due to cruelty, exploitation, habitat loss and environmental devastation.

Introduce the progressive people in your community to animal rights issues. IDA’s popular Occupy Compassion cards are being distributed at Occupy events all over the world. Contact us for free cards to hand out at your Occupy protest anywhere in the U.S. If you are outside the U.S., a donation to offset mailing costs would be appreciated. For more information or to request Occupy Compassion cards, contact hope@idausa.org.

It’s a nice start, but I’d love to see a more strongly worded vegan message. Or, um, a vegan message, period. Maybe someone could make that happen? With a link to www.govegannow.com, perhaps? Uncompromising vegan url is uncompromising.

What follows is the most delicious action alert I’ve ever received from In Defense of Animals. In honor of World Go Vegan Week, IDA and Daiya want to team up with you (yeah, you!) to spread the cheesy vegan pizza love! Help persuade your local pizzeria to offer a vegan pie for World Go Vegan Week … and beyond! (Vegan Pizza Day is just a few months later, yo!) All the vegan pizza will be ours! Muahahaha!

By the by, Vegan Pizza Takes Over the World? NEEDS TO BE A COOKBOOK LIKE NOW! Make it happen, crafty chef peoples!

Vegan Pizza Takes Over the World!

World Go Vegan Week (October 24 – 31) is a celebration of compassion, and a time to take action for animals, the environment, world hunger, and everyone’s well-being. This year is going to be extra special … and extra cheesy! We want to help make it even easier to be vegan, and what better way than being able to order a quick and easy pizza – with delicious vegan Daiya cheese.

You can help with just a few minutes of your time by reaching out to your local pizzeria and asking them to offer a vegan pizza. Our goal is to make eating vegan simple, fun, and accessible to every community. One of the best aspects of restaurant outreach is that a single person can make a direct and lasting difference for animals.

Please contact your local pizza shop and ask them to offer a vegan pizza for the week of World Go Vegan Week. Our partners at Daiya cheese have offered to provide a free sample of Daiya cheese for the pizza shop to try. Daiya cheese melts, stretches, and tastes just like traditional dairy-based cheese.

We will provide you with a letter and tips on how to approach the pizzerias. Remember, all it takes is one person to make a major difference in changing everyday restaurants into vegan-friendly havens.

To be part of spreading the vegan pizza love in your community, contact Hope Bohanec: hope@idausa.org 415-448-0058 or 707-540-1760.

Last updated on 3/14/11 @ 2:00 PM CDT.

Partnership between WSPA and UNIFESO mobilizes people to treat animals in the mountainous region: A stand of veterinary care will open this Saturday 05/02, to meet animals, victims of floods which have battered the mountainous region. Read more…
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Between the brush fires and flooding in Australia and the flash floods and landslides in Brazil, the world has seen at least several large-scale “natural” disasters in recent months – though consumers of mainstream media may be none the wiser. As with the 2010 floods in Pakistan, these emergencies have received little coverage (at least in the United States), including from animal advocacy corners.

Perhaps it’s due to “compassion fatigue” in the wake of the earthquakes in Haiti, which sparked an outpouring of support. (If not structural, but still.) I’d like to believe that, as far as fellow animal advocates are concerned, the silence is attributable to a simple lack of news to report. At least, this has been the case ’round these parts; aside from the stray plea for donations, I haven’t seen much in response to more recent disaster situations.

When I received Kinship Circle’s latest newsletter, reporting that it – in partnership with IDA – was on the ground in Brazil, providing disaster relief to the nonhuman victims of the floods and mudslides, I figured it was high time to write about the relief efforts currently underway in Brazil. Though I spent much of the morning combing through the websites of well-known animal welfare groups – including many of those that responded to previous disasters – I was only able to find a few that are currently providing aid in Brazil.

The most pressing need, of course, is for monetary donations. Please give what you can. Long-term, volunteers – bodies on the ground – are essential to providing emergency assistance as well. To this end, please also consider getting involved with an animal advocacy group that specializes in disaster response. If you live in the U.S., Kinship Circle is a good start; check out its Disaster Responder Volunteer Form for more info.

In you know of any other resources, please share! You can either email me at easyvegan [at] gmail.com, or leave in it the comments section, and I’ll tackle it it asap. Please and thank you.

1. Animal Rescue & Vegan Relief at a Glance

Here’s a quick roundup of the animal welfare, animal rights, and vegan groups that are either 1) directly assisting with animal rescue efforts in Brazil or 2) collecting and distributing funds to those that providing aid in the region. Please note that some of these groups may focus on “saving” farmed and working animals so that they can be further exploited in the future – and let your own ethics guide you in your decision to donate.

search and rescue services, veterinary treatment, including spaying and neutering, and other needed assistance. The goal, as in the aftermath of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami, is to work within the structure of Brazilian agencies and bring together human, technical, and material resources.

Both groups are experienced in disaster response and animal rescue efforts, with Kinship Circle in particular focusing disaster relief as a core mission. Kinship Circle and IDA deployed volunteers to Brazil in the weeks following the flash floods and mudslides. You can follow their progress on Kinship Circle’s website, with a special page dedicated to the campaign here: Brazil Floods & Mudslides – Field Notes. (IDA maintains an Animals in Disasters blog, but it hasn’t been updated since November ’10.) Both groups have a special nonhuman disaster relief fund to which you can donate: Kinship Circle (select “ANIMAL DISASTER AID FUND”) and IDA.

opened an operations centre to co-ordinate assistance to animal victims.

The centre, situated in the worst-hit town of Teresópolis, opened on 27th January to respond to the essential emergency needs of dogs and cats, the animals most affected by the recent flooding. The centre is now holding 12 tons of dog food and one ton of cat food, as well as veterinary and other essential supplies, to be distributed according to the needs identifed by WSPA in its assesment following the disaster.

The centre’s response team is being co-ordinated by Dr. Sérgio Vasquez, a specialist in disaster management from WSPA’s Central America, Mexico and Caribbean office. The team comprises members of WSPA Brazil and the director of a Brazilian member society, Ecosul, which co-ordinated relief in the state of Santa Catarina in 2009, as well as a profesor from UNIFESO.

In Rio’s floods and mudslides, local member societies SOS Animal, GAPA, AnimaVida and COMBINA all had animal shelters or other facilities in the disaster zone, and were able to respond initially, with the help of donations sent to WSPA Brazil. These organisations will continue to be involved as part of a WSPA-coordinated emergency response, which will focus on immediately providing food, and medical treatment. In the ensuing recovery period, WSPA will continue to co-ordinate such efforts, provide necessary shelter if required, and also engage local authorities and citizens in future preparedness for such disasters.

The Animals in Disasters blog features a donation button for the WSPA’s Animal Disaster Fund, but the link is expired. It seems that the only way to make a donation at this time is through the WSPA’s general donation page.

I haven’t been able to find this alert on IDA’s website in order to link to it, and seeing as the deadline for taking action is this Wednesday, September 9, I’ve copied it below in its entirety.

Mikey the parrot was instead autopsied by a local veterinarian. His owner was then charged with several counts of animal cruelty.

Since the filing of the charges, Zeglin has gone into counseling for his drinking problem. His attorney has also applied for Morris County’s Pre-Trial Intervention Program, which offers probation for first time offenders.

Zeglin is due back in court on Sept. 9.

Until that time, the local police have advised him that the next time another family pet, like his Labrador Retriever, or a family member bothers him during a NASCAR race, he should call animal control or the police instead of reaching again for his BB gun.

After brutally slaughtering the family’s “pet” bird, the local authorities left another “pet,” a dog, in Zeglin’s care, with advice to “call animal control” the next time he’s drinking, angry, and in possession of firearms. Jeez, officers, you’re beginning to make me feel as though you don’t take animal abuse seriously. I mean, WTF!?

While it’s great that Zeglin has sought counseling for alcoholism, animal abuse should preclude him from “owning” nonhuman animals, at least in the near future. Should Zeglin relapse, who will bear the brunt of his rage the next time around?

YOUR CALLS ARE URGENTLY NEEDED or Mikey’s cruel killer may get away with murder!

While Watching TV, New Jersey Man Shoots and Kills Companion Parrot.

Terrified Mikey who was isolated in a cage and had no way to escape, was Zeglin’s innocent target.

On June 7th 2009, 67 year old Dennis Zeglin brutally shot and killed his family’s African Grey parrot with a Daisy Powerline Model 93 C02-powered BB gun. His wife called police and animal control officers were summoned to investigate.

Dennis Zeglin admitted to animal control officers that he shot Mikey in his cage because the bird “irritated” him while he was watching the NASCAR races on TV. According to reports, Zeglin had been drinking and was intoxicated when he fired the three shots that killed Mikey. Since the animal cruelty charges were filed, Zeglin has been undergoing counseling for his alcoholism according to Zeglin’s Defense Attorney, Stephen Fletcher. Fletcher also claims that Zeglin is a first time offender and has applied for an Intervention Probationary Program. This may suggest that Mikey’s cruel assailant may get nothing more than a slap on the wrist for brutally murdering an innocent, and highly intelligent creature.

Undisputed, scientifically proven evidence supports the link between violence to humans and violence to animals and we believe that Zeglin’s violent act could have easily been directed toward a human family member or their family dog.

Every year millions of captive birds suffer from abuse and neglect like Mikey. It is estimated that the majority of captive birds suffer and die prematurely, secretly and silently behind closed doors, from horrendous abuse, malnutrition, and starvation, and live in deplorable conditions, with no hope for rescue. It is also estimated that the majority of captive birds who do survive, suffer an entire lifetime of agony and loneliness.

On June 20th (that’s a week from this Saturday, folks), In Defense of Animals will be holding the first-ever International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ for short).

a global event aimed at bringing mammoth attention to the plight of elephants in zoos and ending their suffering. On Saturday, June 20th, pro-elephant advocates will turn out en masse at their local zoos, holding outreach events and demonstrations to educate the public about the tragic effects of keeping elephants in small, impoverished zoo pens where they are suffering and dying prematurely.

Elephants are highly intelligent, complex and self-aware individuals who have evolved for long distance living. In the wild they range tens of miles a day, live in large, tight-knit family groups, and communicate with one another at great distances. Yet zoos keep elephants in tiny exhibits of a few acres or less, where lack of movement and standing on hard surfaces cause painful foot infections and arthritis, the leading causes of euthanasia in captive-held elephants. The stress and boredom of intensive captivity results in abnormal behaviors such as repetitive swaying and head bobbing. […]

The elephants need your help! By participating in this event, you become part of a global community of pro-elephant advocates joined together on June 20th to end the suffering of elephants in zoos. We urge you to organize or join an event at your local zoo, write letters, educate your friends and family. It’s all about taking action. United, we are a powerful force for change!

Backed by an army of public relations personnel, the zoo industry has been largely successful in convincing the general public that zoos work for the public good: breeding endangered animal species which might otherwise go extinct; fostering in children a love and appreciation for nature and its inhabitants; throwing their weight behind sundry conservation efforts so that, one day, animals need not live in captivity for their species to survive. This is a lie.

Saturday marked the beginning of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL), which is being held from April 18th through the 26th this year.

In addition to emailing the White House Office of Public Liason (OPL) (see below), you can find additional ways to take action at http://www.wwail.org. You can view a list of 2009 events here, or register your own. IDA helpfully provides a bevy of literature, posters and stickers for your events – no matter how big or small – which you can view and download here.

Are you participating in WWAIL? Share your action and outreach ideas in the comments!

World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) Is Here!

April 18 – 26 – Scroll down for an important message you should send to President Obama

In February 2009, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) received an additional $10.4 billion in funding. This money is in addition to NIH’s 2009 budget of $30.3 billion.

Although technology has progressed and there is broad acknowledgment of the flaws of animal models, NIH funding for animal research has remained unchanged and the numbers of animals used has increased.

Please join IDA in contacting the White House Office of Public Liaison during World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) to ask that the $10.4 billion in stimulus money be designated exclusively for non-animal research. Click here to read IDA’s letter to President Obama.

I’m writing to you about language, a subject about which you care deeply—how words alter history, how movements are spearheaded by words. I’m writing about how words affect the forward march of animal rights and protection. (In Europe, the Swiss amended their laws to change the status of animals from “things” to ‘beings.”) I am writing about the transfixing power and importance of words and how they are the source of our very being. Words can stir us into action, mobilize nations. Words can also become weapons, arrows, enslaving, unconsciously encoding a certain kind of behavior. “Owner” has become such a word, with its patina of arrogance, compared to the more humane and humble “guardian.” “Owning” a dog has become a diminishing thing, an impoverishing thing, above all obsolescent, a term that has lost its usefulness, for our beloved animal companions are not things, property, or commodities to be “owned” and thus discarded like an old chair.

Your choice of books, always in some way about justice, compassion, and truth telling, has transfigured countless readers around the world. In a similar way, the idea behind using the term “guardian” when referring to one’s animal companions is built upon a deep and abiding reverence. Every time the term “guardian” is uttered instead of “owner,” it illuminates in the public consciousness the singular and profound bond that exists between human beings and their animal companions. It alters our perceptions of our personal relationships with animals and embraces the powerful idea that we respect and honor their essential value, feelings, interests, and lives. Implicit in the term “guardian” is everything that embodies responsibility, and thus we are creating the most treasured, the most lasting, and the most fundamental relationships with the animals who share our lives. This seemingly nuanced, almost imperceptible, but critical change in language elevates in our eyes our companions’ status from easily disposable property to individual being.

Guardians protect, guard, and preserve. Guardianship is about how people think and imagine and, thus, act. It reflects a refashioning of the way we look at ourselves and the animals among us—it’s a way of seeing the world anew.

Using the term guardian is infinitely more than symbolic—guardians are less likely to chain their animals or abandon them or betray them and are more likely to have them spayed and neutered and given appropriate veterinary care; they are more likely to adopt and rescue rather than buy and sell. Guardians are people who fervently reject dog fighting and puppy mills. Guardians recoil from exploiters and abusers. The term “guardian” refreshes the imagination and allows us to make distinctions—one thing is not another. An “owner” is not a substitute for guardian, where the bond between human and animal is a thing sacred.

There are now six and half million Americans in sixteen cities, two counties, and an entire state who refer to themselves as “guardians ” even on official documents, thus recognizing the true import of the word and our responsibility to our animals’ well being.

I hope the spirit of guardianship moves you to give it a public name. The word “guardian” exudes hope and promise for all animal lives.

SOURCES / REPLY TO:

BILLY’S LAST CHANCE

City Council member Tony Cardenas has presented a motion to stop the L.A. Zoo’s $42 million elephant exhibit renovation. Despite its mammoth expense to taxpayers, it still will not provide the space elephants need, and elephants will continue to suffer and die painfully and prematurely at the Zoo. Fifteen elephants have died at L.A. Zoo. More than half never lived to age 20. Elephants have a natural lifespan of 60-70 years.

We urgently need your help to close the L.A. Zoo elephant exhibit and send its lone elephant, Billy, to a sanctuary. We are so close to freeing him from his lonely existence in a miserable, barren zoo pen — please don’t let him down! This is our last chance to make a difference. There are two very important meetings next week + other actions to take:

The Saturday before Christmas is the biggest puppy buying day of the year. This year, In Defense of Animals is teaming up with activists in dozens of cities around the country to educate the public about the horrors of pet factories and encourage people to adopt a homeless animal from a shelter or rescue group instead of buying one from a pet store.

What: December 20th, 12-3 pm
Where: Your local pet shop

Almost all pet stores around the nation are supplied by inhumane commercial breeding facilities (aka pet factories) where the breeding animals are imprisoned for life and used as breeding machines. Meanwhile, it’s estimated that nearly 5 million healthy cats and dogs (many of them purebred) are euthanized in American shelters every year simply because there aren’t enough homes for them. Make a commitment today to take action for the victims of pet factories and companion animal overpopulation today!

Join In Defense of Animals and friends at your local pet store to help end the abuses of pet factories.

Over at Vegan Soapbox, Elaine has a list of suggestions for online activism, including posting profiles of animals available for adoption on Petfinder and such. Which is a great idea; but first, let’s tackle a few myths about adopting vs. buying animals.

Keep Your Animals Safe On July 4th!

The Fourth of July can be one of the most dangerous and frightening holidays for animals. Loud explosions are terrifying to animals who don’t understand them.

With proper planning and some common sense, your companion animals can remain safe and secure on Independence Day. Here are some tips:

* First and foremost, leave your companion animals at home when you go to see fireworks! Resist the urge to take them to fireworks displays.

* Before you leave home for the fireworks, make sure your animals are indoors in a sheltered, quiet area. Some animals become destructive when frightened, so be sure that you’ve removed any items that your companion animal could destroy or that would be harmful if chewed or swallowed. Leave a television or radio playing at normal volume to keep him/her company.

* Make sure your animals are wearing identification tags (and it’s even better if they’re also microchipped!) so that if they do become lost, they can be returned promptly.

* Do not leave an animal in your car. With only hot air to breathe, your animal friend can suffer serious health effects, even death, in a few short minutes. Partially opened windows do not provide sufficient air or cooling, but they do provide an opportunity for your animal to be kidnapped.

* If you know that your animal becomes seriously distressed by loud noises, consult with your veterinarian before July 4th for ways to help alleviate the fear and anxiety he or she will experience during fireworks displays.

* Never leave your animals outside unattended, even in a fenced yard, and especially not on a chain. With explosions occuring, animals who normally wouldn’t leave the yard may escape and become lost, or become entangled in their chain, risking injury or death. (There are lots of other reasons to never leave your dog chained! Contact us if you want more information about the negative effects of chaining dogs.)

* If you find somebody else’s companion animals running at-large, either take them to the address on the tag, if you feel comfortable doing so, or bring them to the local animal shelter, where they will have the best chance of being reunited with their human families.

KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY – PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST AS WRITTEN

5/15/08: MAY 16, 2008 IS PROCTER & GAMBLE CALL-IN DAY

EMAIL kinshipcircle [at] accessus.net FOR WORD DOC OF A FORMATTED LETTER.
Easily modify letter and copy/paste it into an email or print out to fax or mail.

Call, email, fax or write — on May 16, from 9:00am to 5:00pm EST — to politely ask Procter & Gamble to end ALL animal experiments. P&G utilizes SOME animal-free tests. Ask them to go 100% cruelty-free.

World Week for Animals in Laboratories is Here!

Call-In Days: Urge NIH to End Cruel Animal Experiments

Many people find this hard to believe, but the U.S. government continues to sink millions of dollars each year into funding cruel and outdated experiments on animals to test the effects of nicotine and tobacco. Please join IDA during this week’s observance of World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) to call attention to this outrage and speak out in opposition.

IDA’s Up in Smoke campaign highlights the futility and inhumanity of nicotine experiments on newborn and pregnant animals. These are some examples:

– Since 1992, Elliot Spindel at Oregon Health and Science University delivers steady doses of nicotine to pregnant monkeys through pumps implanted into their backs. The babies are cut out of their mothers’ wombs in order to dissect their lungs.

– At Texas A&M University, Ursula Winzer-Serhan forces baby rats to consume nicotine mixed with baby formula at the equivalent of three packs of cigarettes a day. After about a week of being fed nicotine, the babies’ heads are cut off and their brains are dissected.

– Researcher Kent Pinkerton at University of California, Davis, subjects pregnant rhesus monkeys to smoking chambers where they are forced to inhale cigarette smoke for six hours each day, five days a week. When the infants are ten weeks old, they are killed by lethal injection and their lungs are dissected for analysis.

Over the past five years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given at least $16.5 million to this category of research. This appalling figure does not reflect the total cost of all nicotine research on animals, but only that which focuses on nicotine’s effect on fetal and newborn development.

World Week for Animals in Laboratories

Make plans to get active during WWAIL: April 20 – 26

Please join IDA to make this year’s World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL), April 20 – 26, the most compelling and effective year yet in speaking out against the abhorrent use of animals in testing and research.

Although millions of animals still continue to suffer and die in laboratories, there is cause to be hopeful that real change is on the horizon.

A Landmark Agreement

In February, 2008, three U.S. government agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), signed a five-year agreement to create innovative and animal-free methods to evaluate the safety of drugs and chemicals with the goal of phasing out animal tests entirely.

The NRC’s Groundbreaking Report

In July, 2007, the prestigious National Research Council (NRC) issued a report, “Toxicology for the 21st Century,” which outlines a new approach that would rely less on animal studies and focus instead upon in vitro methods. According to the report, “Over time, the need for traditional animal testing could be greatly reduced, and possibly even eliminated someday.”

Broad and sweeping changes are slowly being realized for animals in labs. Yet millions still remain captive in cages, subject to intolerable cruelty. They will not live to see the day that these changes come about, which is why we urgently need you to join forces with IDA and other animal-protection organizations to vigorously work for such a transformation to happen as soon as possible. While there is reason to celebrate, there are still far too many scientists who adhere to obsolete, imprecise, and heartless animal experiments.

Never-Ending Nicotine Experiments

It may be unfathomable, but in 2008, many animals still die in cruel, archaic, and useless nicotine experiments to tests tobacco’s deleterious effects on the body. That’s why IDA has developed our Up in Smoke campaign, which targets experiments that force pregnant and newborn animals to be pumped full of nicotine. This is just one example of the kind of horrendous animal experiments that we need to stop. Sadly, there are many such vile experiments occurring daily in laboratories.

IDA’s April 2008 Auction for the Animals

Suport IDA’s work by bidding on fabulous items

Support IDA’s mission to defend the rights, welfare and habitats of animals during IDA’s Auction for the Animals on eBay. The auction gives you the opportunity to help IDA help animals while having fun bidding on a wide selection of elegant, exciting and unique items that have been donated to IDA for this very special online fundraising event. Auction items include fantastic travel and accommodation packages, special celebrity memorabilia, tickets for great entertainment and sporting events and much more!

Beginning this Saturday, April 5, you can view the auction items on http://www.ebay.com/ida. Once you find an item that you like, click on the link to view its description, the current bid price, and how much time is left until the bidding ends. Place your bid and keep an eye on it to make sure that, by the time the bidding ends, it’s YOURS. The auction will run in four waves, one wave per week, with new items being added each week.

We are still accepting donated items to offer during the auction, so if you have an item that you would like to contribute, please contact Nicole Otoupalik at (800) 338-4451. All donations are tax deductible. If you already sell on eBay, now is a great time to designate 10-100% of your own auction proceeds to IDA by registering at http://www.missionfish.org, the partner of eBay Giving Works.

In Defense of Animals, located in San Rafael, Calif., is an international animal protection organization with more than 85,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA’s efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi and Cameroon, Africa.

In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible.

FYI: SFAI has apparently canceled the exhibit; according to this article, “a public forum [SFAI] had scheduled to address the controversy” has been nixed as well. I’m assuming that it’s the same forum IDA is referring to in this alert; I don’t think it was canceled until Saturday or Sunday, after the alert was released. Either way, I’m crossposting it as an update. (Sorry for the delay, I still haven’t quite recovered from Thursday’s dental surgery.)

Art Institute officials said Saturday that Abdessemed had shot the videos at a farm in rural Mexico that routinely slaughters animals in the way he depicted. They said the videos were part of a social critique. “One of the things this exhibition was pointing to was the difference in production of food resources between industrialized production in the U.S. and in poorer countries,” said Bratton.

But the exhibition was a far cry from straightforward exposes like Upton Sinclair’s classic muckraking book, “The Jungle,” or the Humane Society’s video footage.

The show did not mention that the videos were shot in Mexico or provide any historical context. Other parts of the exhibition included large neon sculptures and a video of Abdessemed hanging upside down from a helicopter while creating a drawing based on a 19th century French painting.

“Those killings were done gratuitously, not like someone documenting a slaughterhouse,” Katz said. “It sends a terrible message to Art Institute students that it’s OK to go out and do similar things.”

So I still don’t buy this bullshit about “Don’t Trust Me’s” grand social goals. If Abdessemed wanted to draw attention to animal cruelty, he would have provided some contextual info. A half dozen animals, bludgeoned to death against a quaint brick background, played on a loop with no commentary, is a snuff film. These deaths were staged for the camera, in stark contrast to the thousands upon thousands of undercover videos taken by animal rights advocates over the past few decades. If you want to draw attention to animal cruelty, you use existing footage. If it’s not purty enough for you, rework it. But if you go stage a few cases of animal abuse specifically for your exhibit, you’re an animal abuser, not some kind of visionary.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In Defense of Animals Denounces Snuff Video at Art Exhibition

San Francisco, Calif. – Following an overwhelming public response to an action alert from In Defense of Animals (IDA), the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) has suspended the Adel Abdessemed exhibition of animal torture videos entitled, “Don’t Trust Me.” IDA’s President Elliot M. Katz characterized the exhibit, depicting the bludgeoning deaths of tethered animals, as a snuff video.

IDA and its members will also speak up at SFAI’s public forum, scheduled for Monday at noon, and IDA is encouraging the public to attend and speak.

Note to those who carelessly toss out some variation of the complaint that “animals are treated better than people” (usually taking the form of a lamentation that ‘x’ minority group is treated worse even than mere animals; e.g., “women are treated worse than animals” or “dogs are treated better than women!”): Does this mean that I can, say, fillet a baby and get away with my crime, just so long as I videotape it and call it “art”? No? Then STFU.

And for Chrissakes, it’s not as though Abdessemed has to go out and slaughter another six animals to make such an exhibit; animal abuse is everywhere. She could have aired any six of the hundreds (thousands?) of undercover investigations conducted by animal activists. How is exhibiting something you can find on YouTube with distressing frequency “innovative” or “art”, even? Yawn. She’s not an artist, she’s a sadist.

The “Art” of Animal Cruelty

Walk into the Walter and McBean Galleries in San Francisco’s posh Russian Hill neighborhood, and you may be shocked to see what passes for contemporary “art” these days. Six televisions display video images of six different animals — a doe, a goat, a horse, an ox, a pig, and a sheep — being bludgeoned to death with a large sledgehammer by “artist” Adel Abdessemed of Paris. Entitled “Don’t Trust Me,” this sick exhibit is Abdessemed’s and the Institute’s self-serving attempt to pass off the brutal abuse and killing of animals as legitimate artistic creation.

What such “artists” and their patrons overlook is that animals are living beings who feel and suffer just like we humans — and we are no more justified in taking their lives at will than we have the right to kill another person. Such abuse of animals may elicit horror and disgust in viewers, but that does not qualify it as art. Far from it — in fact, “Don’t Trust Me” represents the very worst impulses of the human imagination.

It takes no artistic talent or ability to kill animals, and Abdessemed should have never been given a venue for his sickening “work” in the first place. To their great discredit, the San Francisco Art Institute agreed to sponsor this exhibit, lending it an air of credibility, but what makes matters worse are the obscene rationalizations this venerable institution of learning and culture offers in defense of the sleazy snuff films. These include pedantic claims that such killings “regularly take place…in the real world, on a regular basis,” and that the installation “(makes) typical moral and cultural constraints seem beside the point.”

Such statements betray not only a lack of compassion and basic human decency, but also a fundamental confusion of true artistic creation with the destruction of life. Abdessemed’s work is of no artistic value, and rather than raise people’s consciousness about the cruelties committed against animals every day, it will encourage them to accept animal abuse as a way of gaining attention and notoriety.

To call someone who murders animals an “artist” is an insult to every real artist who refuses to rely on violence and shallow, sensationalistic gimmicks to express his or her vision. While the work of such murderers will surely not endure, their antics may encourage and incite others to torture and kill animals, so it is crucial that people of conscience voice our outrage over this monstrous display of cruelty.

Please Take Action to urge the San Francisco Art Institute to remove Abdessemed’s disgusting exhibit immediately, and implement a policy explicitly prohibiting exhibits for which animals were exploited or killed.

On Tuesday, March 18th, the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California will feature a sensationalist stunt in which a “bubble artist” will attempt to set a record by enclosing an Asian elephant — a member of a critically endangered species — inside a giant soapy bubble. The elephant to be used in this gimmick is named Tai, and is rented out by Have Trunk Will Travel, a business that employs coercive methods of training that rely on negative reinforcement, physical punishment, and use of the bullhook.

IDA has called and written to the Discovery Science Center explaining why using an abused member of an endangered species in a publicity gimmick is wrong, but they chose to ignore us. Then an essay essentially agreeing with our position appeared on the Opinion page of the Los Angeles Times (see below or read online).

Please send a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times at letters [at] latimes.com. Letters should be brief (300 words at most) and written in your own words. Do not send attachments, and remember to include your full name, address, and phone number (for verification purposes — street names and phone numbers will not be published). For complete writing guidelines, call (800) LATIMES, Ext. 74511. If your letter is published, let us know.

News

Cruel Experiments on Monkeys and Cats Exposed in Israel
Take Action to urge Weizmann Institute to stop killing monkeys and cats
A recent undercover investigation in Israel by the advocacy organization Let the Animals Live revealed shocking cruelty being perpetrated on monkeys and cats at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Sea Shepherd Hostages Released from Japanese Whaling Ship
Ask Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. to oppose illegal whaling in Antarctic sanctuary
After two days of being held hostage aboard a Japanese whaling vessel, two volunteer crew members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society were released to Australian authorities late last week.

Kinship Circle also sent out a sample script and some talking points, which you can read here.

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The Humane Society of the United States
January 22, 2008
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CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS TODAY AND HELP END HORSE SLAUGHTER FOREVER!

Today is the National Call-In Day for Horses! Together, we have closed all U.S. horse slaughter plants. Now we need to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) to end the transport to slaughter of American horses to Mexico and Canada.

It is a new year and a crucial time to make your voices heard. Let’s light up the phones on Capitol Hill to send the message loud and clear that we want a permanent ban on horse slaughter now.

News

Tiger Tragedy: Supervisor Calls for Re-evaluation of SF Zoo Management Contract
Take Action to ensure the SF Zoo’s animal care policies and record are considered
On the morning of Friday, January 11th, the Recreation and Park Commission and the Joint Zoo Committee held a public hearing at San Francisco City Hall about the Christmas Day tragedy that took the lives of a Tatiana the Siberian tiger and a young zoo visitor named Carlos Sousa, Jr.

IDA Announces the “Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants in 2007”
List demonstrates AZA-accredited zoos are failing elephants nationwide
Amid the controversy surrounding the Christmas Day tragedy at the San Francisco Zoo, IDA has just announced our fourth-annual list of the Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants.

A Round of Victories for Animals
Plus a chance to Take Action against foie gras
IDA’s eNews and Action Alerts give people the opportunity to speak out for animals who need protection from those who would otherwise exploit them — and together, we are making a difference!